VOA慢速英语20060913a

HEALTH REPORT - Thousands of Workers at Ground Zero Still Suffer Lung ProblemsBy Jerilyn Watson

Broadcast: Wednesday, September 13, 2006

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.


Rescue efforts at the World Trade Center on September 13, 2001

Many of the workers who served at the World Trade Center after the September eleventh attacks became sick. They breathed a harmful mix of dust, smoke and chemicals in the ruins of the Twin Towers and a third building that fell. Some went days without good protection for their lungs.

Five years later, many of the thousands who worked at Ground Zero in the early days after the attacks still have health problems.

Doctors at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City have announced the results of the largest study yet of these workers. The results appeared last week in Environmental Health Perspectives, the journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The study is called the World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program.

It confirmed high rates of breathing problems in members of the building trades, firefighters, police officers and other workers.

Almost seventy percent of the workers in the study had a new or worsened breathing problem. These problems developed during or after their time working in the mountain of wreckage¹. About sixty percent still had breathing problems at the time of their examination.

The researchers say they decided² to study the effects on breathing first because other disorders³ might be slower to appear.

Mount Sinai says it tested almost twelve thousand people between two thousand two and two thousand four. Eight out of ten of them agreed to have their results used in the report.

The new results added strength to a Mount Sinai study released in two thousand four. That study was based on only about one thousand workers.

Some lawmakers have sharply criticized city and state officials for letting workers labor⁴ at Ground Zero without satisfactory equipment. Officials have also been criticized for saying the air was relatively⁵ safe.

State and federal officials have promised more than fifty million dollars to pay for treatment of the workers. Doctor Robin⁶ Herbert is one of the directors of the Mount Sinai testing program. She says people are still coming to the hospital for treatment of problems they say were caused by the dust at Ground Zero. In her words: My worry is that money will be gone in a year, and what happens then?

And that's the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. You can find more reports on the fifth anniversary of the September eleventh attacks at www.unsv.com. I'm Mario Ritter.

1 wreckage   

n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏

参考例句：

• They hauled him clear of the wreckage.他们把他从形骸中拖出来。
• New states were born out of the wreckage of old colonial empires.新生国家从老殖民帝国的废墟中诞生。

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 disorders   

n.混乱( disorder的名词复数 )；凌乱；骚乱；（身心、机能）失调

参考例句：

• Reports of anorexia and other eating disorders are on the increase. 据报告，厌食症和其他饮食方面的功能紊乱发生率正在不断增长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The announcement led to violent civil disorders. 这项宣布引起剧烈的骚乱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

5 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

6 robin   

n.知更鸟，红襟鸟

参考例句：

• The robin is the messenger of spring.知更鸟是报春的使者。
• We knew spring was coming as we had seen a robin.我们看见了一只知更鸟，知道春天要到了。